Easy stream crossing

Friday morning, and an easy stream crossing just outside the camp at Emstrum. No need to take boots off for this one – although Kristjan is ever-vigilant….

Today was the wettest day, with the heaviest and longest rain showers, so my camera didn’t come out very often, and the pictures I took were rushed and didn’t do justice to the views we saw (visibility was pretty good, in spite of the rain).

However, this photo is as good as any to give an idea of the terrain for about the first hour of the day. Here we’re still in black ash and moss country. Soon after we descended a steep escarpment on scree (not my favourite), and then had a short but step down-scramble aided by a rope (you’re right, I didn’t enjoy that bit). Then we crossed a gorge and climbed steeply up the other side and onto a high plateau. From here we could see fantastically twisted rock formations in the walls of the gorge (which were now about 300m high).

After all that excitement and drama, there was a long gradual descent. In the afternoon, we stopped for drinks next to a bridge over another gorge. Here, for the first time in the whole trek, we encountered small birch trees, and were sitting on grass in which wild thyme was growing (the smell was fantastic). We even picked a few bilberries.

The walk finished with the longest stream crossing so far (in fact we had to cross about 4 sections of a fast moving, braided river). Then we walked through woods – yes, more trees – to the camp at Porsmork. The tent was pitched on grass, and we enjoyed barbecued lamb and pancakes with jam and squirty cream for dinner. We amused ourselves by watching vehicles making their way across various sections of another braided river, and, as tomorrow’s route began on the other side of the river, we hoped we weren’t going to have to wade across ourselves.

Talking of tomorrow, the excitement was building. The last day of the trek was going to be a bit of an epic – ascent and descent of more than 1,000m, 26 km to walk, various new volcanic craters to check out and lots of spectacular waterfalls on the way down to the finish. Should be fantastic….